


Align my Heart, Body and Mind

by jarofhearts



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Journalism, M/M, Memories, Past Relationship(s), Undecided Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-19
Updated: 2014-09-19
Packaged: 2018-02-18 01:10:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2329754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jarofhearts/pseuds/jarofhearts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan is a journalist who writes about dangerous topics that made him break up with Fernando for his own safety long ago. Neither can get over the other, and to see each other hurts as much as to be apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Align my Heart, Body and Mind

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired to one half by the life of Stieg Larsson and to one half by a Supernatural quote. Talk about strange ways the mind works.

_I've been waiting for you for so long, and right now there's a war between the vanities, but all I see is you and me,  
the fight for you is all I've ever known - so come home._

* * *

It’s ten in the evening when the doorbell rings and at first Fernando is surprised because he naturally doesn’t expect visitors at this hour. Maybe he, or at least part of him, should have expected it though, it isn’t exactly the first time he opens the door and Dan is standing there, Daniel, his Danny, and for a second he feels like falling, in painful slow motion (not hard and fast like back when he first fell in love).  
  
His hand twitches, maybe with the urge to close the door again, but of course he doesn’t, because his heart is beating in a rhythm it only does when Dan is around, as if it still wants out of his chest, still draws him to Dan as if following the force of a magnet, and he was never good at denying it.  
  
So he lets him in even if it’s with a sigh and he doesn’t return the gaze even though the skin on the back of his neck is tingling from it and he reaches up and rubs it (remembering how Dan used to do that for him whenever he felt Fernando’s shoulders tensing).  
  
They sit down at the kitchen table in silence, Fernando with one foot tucked underneath him (just like he always does), Dan on the edge of his chair (just like he always does).  
  
“How are you?” Dan finally asks, quiet and apprehensive even though Fernando knows that he tries not to show it, and the answer is easy because it’s always the same.  
  
“Just like last time.”  
  
It never fails to bring that look to Dan’s eyes, somewhere between relief and guilt (they were never there when they started out years ago, and the thought makes Fernando’s heart ache).  
  
“So. When’s the next publication?”  
  
“Day after tomorrow,” Dan answers, fiddling with the tag of the water bottle standing on the table, and Fernando wishes he would stop but doesn’t want to say the word, and reaching out to cover his hands and take them away is out of question. So he clenches his fingers in the fabric of his sweatpants instead.  
  
“What’s it about this time?”  
  
“Cooperation between Danish and German neo-Nazis, their ‘friendship concerts’… why we make it so attractive and easy for them to come here.”  
  
A soft shudder is creeping down Fernando’s spine and he wraps his arms around himself (because the memory isn’t gone, hasn’t lost any of its horror, no matter what he claims when he opens his mouth).  
  
“They know your face by now, how do you even get in to write about this?”  
  
“I… can we not… talk about  _them_?”  
  
The words hang between them and Fernando stays silent. He knows how important people like Dan are, people who put the finger in societies’ sore spots, rub salt into wounds if necessary, who keep the politicians on their toes. Who write about those things that are still wrong in a country where a whole lot is right. About hidden agendas, about corruption in politics, but more often than not about right wing radicalism and fascism to the point of his name appearing on one of those death lists on the internet. And he’s proud of Dan, so fiercely proud, but sometimes he wishes the man he loves wouldn’t have to be one of them (and that they could have just lived their picture-perfect life with every damn cliché in the book).  
  
Fernando bites down hard on his lower lip and waits for Dan to say something, anything, to end the stretch of silence that seems to have taken its place between them (where once had been conversation flowing as easy as breathing, laughter and teasing and admissions of endless affection), but he doesn’t. He looks like his shoulders are weighed down by invisible bonds, looks as if he can’t even raise his head to look at him.  
  
“Dan, why are you here?” Fernando hears himself say, the quiet words so loud that he startles even himself and he takes a harsh breath to force himself to go on. “I’ve been… you said…”  
  
Silently cursing himself he abruptly stands up from his seat and walks over to the kitchen counter, clenching his hands so hard around its edges it hurts, and his heart beats dully in his ears. He doesn’t want to sound hurt, or reproachful, or desperate (but there’s a hint of it all in his voice).  
  
“I’m trying to live my life, just like you wanted. I’m trying to meet people, I’m trying to go out on dates.” He sucks in a shaky breath and then turns around at the sound of chair legs scraping over the floor. “I’m  _trying_  to get over you. But I can’t if you keep coming –”  
  
He’s being cut off by hands on his cheeks and a crushing kiss, and Dan’s scent and taste floods his senses like a monster wave crashing upon land and erasing everything in its wake, and for a brief second Fernando wonders if it was the mention of  _dates_  that set Dan off this time, but then again it doesn’t matter, whatever,  _whatever_ , because in the end one of them always breaks the dam (and Fernando has already forgotten about all their reasons from the times before).  
  
Their kiss is as frenzied as it can get, fingers clawing at fabric and hair and skin, an uncontrolled hand sweeping an empty apple bowl from the counter top to the ground with a thundering clash, hips and legs bumping into the edge of table, chairs, corners, sure to leave bruises, they stumble more than walk, but at least they somehow manage to have the presence of mind to find the bedroom (not like the first time, or the second). Not even questioning this, they simply both know that now they’ll end up there anyway.  
  
The sheets don’t smell like Dan anymore (they haven’t for quite some time), but Fernando can bury his nose in Dan’s hair, take deep gulps of familiar-scented air that arouse him as much as the friction of their bodies, so for a moment it doesn’t matter anymore. They fumble frantically, no care for time or patience or anything, really, they need this as quick and fast and hard as possible – they  _need_ , pure and simple as that.  
  
Fernando remembers that there have been times (beautiful, glorious, perfect times) when Dan would make an art out of bringing him to heights of unimaginable intensity, when he would seduce him and tease him and take all the time he needed to bring Fernando a few unearthly seconds of blinding white light and perfect clarity.  
  
They don’t have all the time in the world anymore, they have just those few hours because the night is too short, they can’t just settle against each other and give in to the tiredness setting in afterwards, so after they have come for the first time (quick, fast, hard), they kiss through the aftermath, breathe in and taste and caress until they’re ready to go again. They can’t, absolutely  _can’t_  just stop after only once (or twice).  
  
Their bodies tremble from exertion and scream at them to slow down (because they’re just not teenagers anymore), but they’re not just too stubborn to listen but too desperate, and when they fuck (make love) for the third time in not even half as many hours and Dan brokenly mutters, “I love you, I love you, I still love you so much,” Fernando buries his face in Dan’s neck and weeps through the final shudders wrecking his exhausted body.  
  
They fall asleep without even one more word, sweaty and entangled and worn out, but for Fernando it’s a light, fitful sleep because he stirs time and time again, always afraid when he does that Dan might have disappeared when he’s asleep, just like that, and so he clings to him all night because maybe (maybe maybe  _maybe_ ) this is the last time this will happen.  
  
He remembers their morning routine. How Dan (notorious early riser) would crawl out of bed while Fernando (notorious late sleeper) would bury himself back into the warm sheets once more. After a few minutes Dan would come back to bed with two cups of coffee and the newspaper, and they would sip the hot liquid and read their paper, cuddled together and discussing articles, sometimes with regards to content, sometimes to form. Sometimes simply how through their work, the paper had brought them together.  
  
When Fernando returns to consciousness that morning because the rhythm of Dan’s breathing changes, his head is resting on Dan’s shoulder, his arm is around Dan’s waist, but he can’t even really enjoy the hand resting on the small of his back, because… because…  
  
“Please don’t go,” he mumbles just like he does every time, and he won’t ever stop trying, because he just knows that some day,  _some day_ , Dan’s composure will crack. But he feels the muscles tense under his hand and just knows that today won’t be that day (again), so he steels himself and rolls away, trying so hard not to simply want to lie back down (of course failing miserably, again).  
  
“Fernando…”  
  
“Don’t, Dan, just…” he tries, wrapping himself up in his bathrobe, shivering a little when he senses that pair of eyes on him (from uneasiness, not from excitement how he used to).  
  
“Fernando,” Dan tries again, and his voice is so gentle and conflicted that Fernando has to swallow down a painful lump in his throat, “when will you stop asking that?”, and it just makes Fernando lose it.  
  
“Never, Dan!” he shouts and whirls around, wanting to take that man that is sitting up in his bed by the shoulders and just shake sense into him. “Never, damn it, because nothing will ever change! Something in me still expects to find you here every time I come home! Every time the phone rings a tiny part of me hopes it’s you, even though it never is! God damn it, I left my country for you! I’d take you back in a heartbeat, and if you asked me to marry you right now I wouldn’t even hesitate for a second because I still want to spend my goddamn  _life_  with you!”  
  
Dan looks pale, the freckles and rings under his eyes standing out sharply as he draws his hand through his hair and shakes his head.  
  
“Don’t, please, please don’t. Nando, God, you know… you  _are_  my life. How can I put you in that kind of danger? How can I, after everything? We were seen together  _once_ , and you –”  
  
“You don’t even know if that was the reason! Maybe they just didn’t like my face,” Fernando cuts in, throwing his hands into the air, helplessly frustrated. “Do you really still think this is worth just giving it all up?”  
  
“What, and with ‘this’ you mean getting you killed?” Dan shoots back, helplessly angry, and maybe Fernando just can’t understand, even though he has lived through it all too, has just as ugly memories (pain, fear, terror, helplessness), but he learned to cope with them. Dan, he knows, still sees those memories in his head all too often, it’s not like he hasn’t told him ( _you in that hospital bed, unconscious, so pale, the bruise on your cheekbone, your split lip, the wound on your forehead, blood in your hair_ ), and he’s sure that it left wounds in them both that will never heal. Because those people aren’t exactly squeamish about violence when it comes to those they hate, and technically he knows he was lucky that they didn’t finish what they started, that he was found in time and he knows that, despite his best efforts to convince him otherwise, Dan will forever blame himself for this.  
  
“I’m  _not_  going to get –”  
  
“We’ve talked about this so often,” Dan shakes his head with weary determination (they just run around in circles, time and time again), dresses himself while Fernando wants to throw a fit but only clenches his fists and presses his lips together. “I just… I can’t. I’m barely even thirty, I’m too young to just retire…” And he wants to tell him to just go back to what they both did before and not write anything anymore that makes him keep his phone number and address and the people he loves as secret as humanly possible, but everything that comes out is, “Just… please, just go.”  
  
Fernando turns around and leaves the room, shakes off Dan’s gentle grasp on his wrist and flees to the front door, holding it open (refusing to look Dan in the eye), and he stands there for as long as it takes for Dan to finally, finally slip past him.  
  
All strength seems to leave Fernando’s legs as soon as the door clicks shut and he slides down with his back against it, burying his head between his arms and taking deep, unsteady breaths (wishing he could have it all back, the entire days spent in bed talking, discussing, joking, teasing, the dinners cooked together in the evening, the nights sharing buckets of ice cream on the couch, the unhurried love-making whenever, wherever they wanted, their plans for the future, together, all of it together, always, always, forever).  
  
There’s a soft, dull thud and he knows that Dan is still there on the other side, and all that separates them is a door. And Fernando thinks that the hardest barriers of all to overcome are those that are self-made.


End file.
